Penciled and inked this Tuesday. Wednesday added watercolor and set up this week’s panel for the The Log Whisperer at Old Log Houses by Thomas page. The finished version will show up there sometime soon.

The Case of the Perjured Parrot by Erle Stanley Gardner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The ‘Perjured Parrot’ is a more complex Mason tale than others I’ve read. These earlier books are better written and thought out. This book has a lot going on and kept me guessing. Though, one part, left to the very end, was very obvious to me. The parrot inclusion is a ridiculous addition and the entire book would’ve been better without it.

The dialogue is worth the reading as Gardner appears to be having a lot of fun writing it. The light touch helps move the story along.

Bottom line: I recommend this book. 7 out of ten points.

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Jewels of Gwahlur by Robert E. Howard
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Seems to me this was one of Howard’s easier books to write. He just rolled a Maguffin out towards the horizon and came up with a story of Conan chasing it. Sure starts easy involving climbing and meandering about looking for something or other. Then the girl gets dropped in and Conan is distracted from his mission. There’s a bit of folderol of Conan acting like Perry Mason and it all ends as most Conan stories do.

I’m filing through these tales and still struck by Howard’s inventiveness of another world with beings, sounding much like humans, in other-wordly structures. Would love to have seen what Howard might’ve produced if he’d lived another 30 years.

Still puzzled by the faddish mis-understanding of Howard’s work as others write of “racism” and the like. Howard writes of somewhere, some-when else. Current faddish American name-calling being bandied about can not apply. Seems folks aren’t reading Conan as Howard intended.

As usual Howard just doesn’t know how to write of structures. At one point he writes of Conan being in a “bowl-like” area, but never explains that further or have Conan involved with scaling inclines, or the reverse, involving a bowl-like shape.

I rank this of one of the lesser tales I’ve read so-far.

Bottom line: I recommend this book. 5 out of 5 points.

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They Couldn’t Kill Sullivan (Formerly “From Crime to Christ”) A True Story by J.C. Sullivan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The title change was a good move, though the emphasis shouldn’t have been the name. The gist of the cover language is a bit deceptive. More so the illustration. Though Sullivan was a bad guy, he wasn’t a team mate of Bonnie and Clyde. They did travel in the same areas with many of the same people. As he write, his association with Pretty Boy Floyd was more significant. Along with a slew of others.

This could’ve been a heck of a book. Sullivan writes the elements needed. He just doesn’t know how to write…or edit. Due to that there is too much mess and the typical glaring problems of self-publishing prior to computers. The cut and paste is obvious and repetition of stories and documents presented.

If Sullivan could’ve found a solid writer, this book would’ve been a best seller…even a so-so seller.
The most important thing is that the story and history exists at all and provides a first person narrative to the criminal world in the ’20s through the ’40s. A rarity as most didn’t live long enough to record their story…or wouldn’t anyway.

As Sullivan was most intent to establish his life of Christian faith, it does appear he down played a lost of his life prior. For instance, I wish he’d been more clear how his wife stuck with him and produced children for over ten years, when he wasn’t around a good deal of the time, according to him.

His writing about the drug issue is territory evaded these days and should be amplified. Here he dives a bit deeper and relates the dark hole most fall into. People, today, have some backward idea drug use is just fun and ignore the piles of dead bodies in Chicago. I’m sure, if her were still around, Sullivan would be producing more books of that subject alone.

His shift to Christianity is explained, but I found that shallow. There’s a clear distinction of before and after, but the actual mind-shift is covered in a couple of sentences.

Though it’s poorly written and edited, this is an invaluable story of a Depression-era bad guy worth reading.

Bottom line: i recommend this book: 6 out of 10 points.

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Perry Mason: The Case of the Stepdaughter’s Secret by Erle Stanley Gardner
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Just before this read a Gardner ‘Cool and Lam’ entry. That was light stuff in plotting compared to #70. Yet, #70 is very light where the Cool and Lam book was meatier. Gardner handles Mason, Street as assumed cardboard cut-outs and the rest of the cast are mere tissue. Whereas the Cool and Lam book (#27) illustrates the strong characters of the duo.

Somehow I’ve managed to read a series of books with blackmail in them. The last few get into the mechanics of the blackmail. This one is mostly about playing against the scheme and around it. A lot of shell games. That would be neat if not for, to me, the obvious conclusion.

Too bad Gardner didn’t invest more time into something else left fallow, the settings. a critical part of how Gardner writes the tale. It’s so loosey goosey, the settings could’ve been anywhere. Especially Mason’s office.

I’ve usually been left guessing who-dun-it. This one was too easy and poorly written.

Bottom line: i don’t recommend this book. 4 out of ten points.

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Shadows in Zamboula by Robert E. Howard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a tale I read in the ‘Savage Sword of Conan’ a good 4 decades ago. It was illustrated by Neal Adams (and his Crusty Bunkers) and inked by Tony Dezuniga. I had an opportunity, a couple years after reading the magazine to buy an original page of the illustrated story. I did so for a tiny price, later selling it after a divorce.

Now I’ve read the actual story by Howard. The comic adaption is very faithful and very well written. This is better written, but a bit muddled in palaces that the comics adaption cleans up. Howard kinda over ran his headlights with this one and I guess that was due to his incredible speed, deadlines and need of cash. Still far better crafted than most written today.

The use of Conan is more as a pawn to handle the MaGuffin involved, though that is not revealed until later. Howard’s use of other characters is so very good. I’m filing through this collection of his stories and look forward to his writing of detective and westerns stories.

I have to add a note of other reviewers mentioning “racial stereotypes”. What on earth are they writing of? This story is note of this earth or earthlings. Howard conjured all involved. Skin color is only for adjectives, not of some imagined connection to earthly beings. The imagining itself is seeking boogy men where they don’t exist, except for want of them to exist.

Again, this is my fascination with Howard. I’m not much for the genre, but am stirred by this fantasy world he has made up. He went nearly no where, relied on books to know more of the ideas of geography and the world. Then used his own backyard as the setting of this other setting for Conan. Quite something!

Bottom line: I recommend this book. 8 out of ten points.

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My #MerMay #12! It’s drawing in the birthday of, my good pal and frantic cartoonist, Debbie Schafer.

Kuretake brush pen, watercolor on watercolor paper.
No pencils or plan. Made it up as I drew.
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#Draw #Drawing #Watercolor #Painting #Cartoon #Cartooning #Caricature #Artist #Art